Shotgun
by When the Wind Stands Fair
Summary: The shotgun has always been Beckers weapon of choice, ever since he was a small child, watching TV with his Dad. He doesn't know why. Please Review.


Shotgun

The shotgun had always been Becker's weapon of choice. From when he was a small child, watching TV with his dad, the shotgun had always stood out.

He wasn't sure why. A handgun, as his father often pointed out, would be much more convenient. It was smaller; it would fit in a pocket. It would only require one hand to fire, meaning you could fire two at the same time.

A handgun, young Hilary knew, didn't need pumping after every shot. The bullets were smaller and came in a magazine, very handy for quick firing.

Also good for quick firing, Colonel Becker told his son, is a machine gun. Just hold the trigger down and rip the target apart. You could fell a tree with a machine gun.

All evidence pointed to the shotguns' inferiority. Too big, too bulky. Took too long to fire.

But Hilary loved it.

As a six-year-old he would watch police or army dramas, sat on his dads lap. The good guy would be armed with a handgun; a SIG or a Glock, while the baddie took his chances with whatever gun came to hand.

It was usually a shotgun.

Colonel Becker would watch the involuntary grin spread across the boy's face at the sight of the weapon. He would smile, remembering his own fetish at Hilary's age. He had liked rifles. Which were even less convenient than shotguns.

At school Hilary was no less obsessed.

His parents would receive worried letters from his teacher, panicking over the crude drawings of shotguns appearing in the corners of his books. Usually they were hard to make out; they would be completely indecipherable, had the word SHOTGUN not been boldly printed above every one. This was unheard of; Hilary Becker could spell shotgun before he could spell his own name.

In art class the teacher would wander around, commenting on the scribbled pictures her class produced. Many kids would draw the same thing over and over, in every class. Samantha would draw a flower with a yellow centre, and all the purple petals would be different shapes and sizes. Anthony's tractor would differ in colours, but would always be a tractor.

And every lesson, without fail, Hilary would proudly present a shotgun.

This trend continued throughout primary school, although the gun gained detail and annotations. One even had step-by-step instructions on operating it.

On Hilary's tenth birthday his dad took him shooting for the first time. It was his first time using a gun.

The rifle had a cool black barrel with walnut plating on the stock. It wasn't a shotgun but Hilary loved it anyway. He loved the feel of the butt resting on his shoulder, the smooth metal supported in his left hand. He loved the gentle squeezing on the trigger, the loud crack that followed and the powerful recoil that never failed to send a thrill through him. He never really cared if he hit anything.

Hilary went shooting with his father every weekend he could after that. Using the rifle became second nature to him.

On his twelfth birthday he was treated to a session with the handguns, proving himself to be just as good a shot as with the rifle.

He loved the guns. The compact pistols and the powerful snipers. He loved the wild rattle of the machine guns as bullets strafed across the wooden targets.

Hilary would yearn for Saturday mornings, getting up with the sun and heading out into the forest with his dad and the dogs, rifle settled in the crook of his arm.

He yearned for the recoil, the smell of gunpowder and oil that hung in the air after every shot.

But, above all, he yearned for a shotgun.

Hilary would never forget the day, his fourteenth birthday, when his dad unlocked the Secret Cupboard he and his three sisters were forbidden from opening.

Stacked from floor to ceiling were guns. Hilary could make out SIGs and Glocks, G36s and snipers, and there, right at the back...

His jaw dropped.

Nestled among the pistols and ammunition was a shotgun.

A shining, jet-black, deadly as _hell_ Mossberg 500 Cruiser.

_His _gun.

His shotgun.

That gun had become his best friend. It had never let him down, not when the foxes attacked his mother's chickens, not when his sister's jealous ex-boyfriend had shown up on the doorstep. Although he hadn't fired it the second time, just the sight of the furious sixteen year-old with a shotgun had been enough to send Derek running for the hills.

That, he decided, was what he loved about shotguns.

The gun had marked his acceptance into Sandhurst. When the letter had dropped through the door, Becker had celebrated with a military-style shot into the air from his back door, much to the amusement of his family.

Becker loved that gun. It had been the first piece of equipment to be cleaned every morning at the world-famous academy. He spent so long buffing it that his boots would often remain slightly dusty in the parade.

But at least the shotgun gleamed.

After the year at Sandhurst, most of the men polished their ceremonial rifles and bayonets until they shone.

Except Hilary Becker.

He polished his shotgun.

It was a strange sight on the Sovereign's Parade. Over a hundred men marched down the long white drive, chins up, shoulders back, perfectly in time, with their rifles utterly resplendent.

Except one.

As Hilary Becker became Captain Becker, his shotgun gleamed on his shoulder.

Sans bayonet and walnut, it was decidedly rag-tag beside the elegant guns of his comrades, but Becker didn't care.

Because he loved his shotgun.

Despite everything, the shotgun took a backseat upon the posting to Iraq. The terrain and distance needed to fire over favoured the machine guns and assault rifles.

But the shotgun was never left behind.

Constant risk of attack on the front line meant that what couldn't be carried must be left at the base.

So Becker weighed himself down with his shotgun; it was too special to lose.

Although his men would laugh at this, the day came when no-one could deny the shotgun's usefulness.

While on a patrol, Becker and ten men were caught unawares by the enemy.

A door behind them burst open, releasing a stream of men, all opening fire on the small party.

While his men were struggling to reload their machine guns, Becker threw himself backwards, skidding on his back as he unleashed a hail of shotgun fire right into their attackers faces.

Within minutes, twenty enemy soldiers lay dead on the floor. They had tried to retaliate against Becker, but the smoke from his relentless firing had shielded him from view, allowing his men to rearm and return fire.

Captain Becker was decorated for heroism and his men never questioned the shotgun again.

Up until the age of twenty-three, Becker participated in many tours of duty, accompanied everywhere by his faithful gun.

It now bore as many battle scars as any soldier; small scratches on the barrel from shrapnel and rocks but it never failed to work perfectly when Becker needed it to.

He had returned from a tour in Afghanistan when he received the call.

A position had opened up in a secret government organisation as Head of Security, following the death of one of its foremost members. The job was his if he wanted it.

Eager to remain in his own country, he accepted immediately.

The first part of his brief was more or less what he expected. He would be leading a team of around fifty soldiers that made up the security section. His main job was the protection of four people the organisation orbited around: Professor Nick Cutter, leading research scientist. Connor Temple, resident genius and head of anything technological. Abby Maitland, zoologist and Jenny Lewis, PR.

The second half was less expected.

He would be protecting these people from dinosaurs.

His disbelief was soon quelled by the footage of the team in action.

A mammoth on the M25. Raptors in a shopping centre. He would always pretend his hand hadn't tightened on his gun when he saw the Smilodon.

So began his work in the ARC. He led his men, befriended his colleagues and chased dinosaurs.

The shotgun was never far away. In fact, it had never been used more in all his time in the army. With it he took on a Giganotosaurus, any fear he felt being quelled by the smooth metal beneath his fingers.

When Christine Johnson told him to track down and arrest the team he knew what it would come to: him holding his friends at gunpoint.

He had looked at his shotgun, propped up in his locker, then, for the first time since his fourteenth birthday, left it behind. There was no way he'd shame it with an act like this. He took a machine gun instead.

The shotgun was quickly becoming his trademark. When his men would grab the G36s and the MK47s, he reached for his shotgun.

Its swansong came in the post-apocalyptic future; its deafening shots drawing the predators away from Abby, Connor, Danny and Jack. It blasted a predator to bits from inside a car.

No, his shotgun had never failed him and, despite years of ridicule in the army, he had never given up on it. It had served him well for ten long years but, like any weapon, it couldn't win every time.

He stood in front of the anomaly with Danny, Connor and Abby but, this time, he wouldn't be going with them. He had already given Connor his bag and now ran his eyes over his faithful shotgun once more before doing something he had never done before.

He reached out, and gave it to Danny.

Then they were gone.

Captain Becker sighed. He felt the events of the day weighing heavily on his mind. One slip, and they would crush him.

He looked down at the weapon in his hands. He had once been able to see his face in the barrel. It had once been shiny and new, gleaming down at him from that shelf on his fourteenth birthday.

Now it was almost unrecognisable.

The barrel was scuffed, a huge scratch ran its length, the butt was dented and he could even make out tooth marks. It was dusty and slightly bloodstained. He smiled.

His shotgun had saved many lives.

He had been returning to the armoury to put the EMDs away when Connor gave a sudden shout.

He pulled the old, battered rucksack off his shoulder and started pulling out bent forks and other flotsam likely to accumulate in a bag during a year in the cretaceous. Finally, he carefully extracted a long, thin object wrapped in a silver survival blanket.

Becker could feel his eyes widening as Connor unwound the blanket, revealing the old shotgun. He reached out, gently taking it from his friend's hands.

'I can't tell you how many times that saved our lives mate.'

Connor had explained where the gun's various injuries had come from. The long scratch was the result of being forced down a future predator's throat. The dents were proof of its ability to batter angry raptors into submission. That was also the cause of some of the bloodstains. The others belonged to Connor or Abby having used it to shoot their way out of dangerous situations. Despite the slippery blood on their hands, the gun had never failed.

The shotgun had always been Becker's weapon of choice. From when he was a small child, watching TV with his dad, the shotgun had always stood out.

He wasn't sure why. A handgun would be much more convenient. A machine gun is better for rapid fire.

Handguns are overrated. Machine guns are clichéd. Shotguns are special.

Is it their ability to intimidate the most jealous of boyfriends? Their capacity to save lives in the face of ridicule?

Perhaps it was the fact that they could take you from excited kid to protective brother to cadet to seasoned soldier to dinosaur hunter.

He didn't know.

Maybe he just loved shotguns.


End file.
